If you are not familiar with The Babylon Bee, it is a parody news site. Parody exaggerates for comic effect, but comedy to work and to especially make biting social commentary must contain an element of truth wrapped in its exaggeration. The current celebrity sex scandals have been a ripe field for the Babylon Bee.

One of the first such headlines to catch my attention read: “Another Actress Accuses Kirk Cameron of Treating Her with Respect.” The “article” goes on to quote this fictional actress as saying, “I never felt threatened, and I always felt safe and respected.” Another line states that women were treated “like fellow humans with inherent value, and not as sexual objects to be exploited.” Those are great lines.

Christian ethics do teach us to treat people with respect and not exploit them using them as objects. The Bible views sexuality as created by God and beautiful, but it is to be reserved for the relationship of marriage, marriage of a man and woman. We are taught not to lust (Matthew 5:27-28). So, when Christian ethics are lived it will lead to chaste behavior.

I will admit that there have been sexual scandals among Christians including ministers and church leaders. But whenever such things happen, they are the result of sin and weakness. They are examples of not living the faith, and they are aberrations — not what happens most of the time. Christian ethics lead to chaste and respectful behavior.

Another parody headline reads: “Sexual Revolution Working Out Great, Reports Nation Full of Perverts.” This is the headline for an article dealing with all the sex scandals. It raises the question of whether we should be surprised by sex scandals after a sexual revolution that encouraged sexual license. The secular moral relativist has a problem. The sexual predator is working with an ethic of might makes right: power and prestige allow a person to take advantage of a young woman or man and get away with it. We are understandably going through a period where there is a backlash to that, which I applaud as a Christian. But we can ask the moral relativist: why is might makes right wrong? If there is no ultimate standard, objections become more like I prefer chocolate over vanilla.

The sex scandals are troubling in many ways. The “casting couch” has been a cliché all of my life. People knew such things went on but didn’t expose them. Exposure is good, but we as a nation are in need of repentance that really turns to God. Further, the very people in entertainment and government engaged in this type of activity have often pushed the sexual revolution as a social agenda. The wreckage of the sexual revolution is all around us if we have eyes to see. Finally, there is another inconsistency. As men in entertainment are being outed, the entertainment being produced is still often sexually explicit. There is much that we as Christians should not watch. Does not this material make us into a nation of voyeurs? Are not voyeurs just another kind of sexual predator? Why condemn one kind of predator and not challenge the other? The final question is: where does this all end? The Bible’s answer has always been repentance or judgment.

In 2004 at the age of six Alex Malarkey was in a horrible car accident. The accident left him paralyzed, and he was in a coma for two months with questions about whether he would survive. But when he awoke from his coma, he talked about having been to heaven. This became the basis for the book, The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven. The book lists Alex and his father as co-authors, although I suspect that six year olds don’t really author books. The book became a New York Times Bestseller.

But the bestseller has become a recent scandal. Alex, now a teenager, has recanted the story. In fact, he has attempted for the past two years to get the publisher and booksellers to listen to him. This is what he wrote to the publisher, booksellers, and what he calls “the Marketers of Heaven Tourism.”

I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.

I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth.1

The scandal has more to do with when did the publisher and booksellers know. Emails would seem to indicate that in the case of one bookseller, they knew and did nothing. They have subsequently agreed to pull the book, and the publisher has agreed to stop selling the book (although the book had a reprint in 2014 and is still on Amazon.com). I feel badly for Alex. He was a child and is still a minor.

But why bring up a scandal? Partly because it is in the news. Partly because stumbling blocks to faith exist, and we need to be prepared for them. Christian scandals are not new; they go back all the way to Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). We need to be reminded that our faith must be in Christ. People can disappoint.

I appreciate Alex’s statement: “They should read the Bible, which is enough.” I believe in heaven because of Jesus. He is the one with Old Testament prophecies pointing to him. The New Testament teaches that he had an existence prior to conception, that he came to us from heaven (John 1:1-14, John 3:13, Philippians 2:5-11). He is the one with witnesses to his resurrection and ascension, who were transformed and persecuted. I can have confidence about heaven, because Jesus is truly the one who came from heaven.